As editor of The Washington Post Magazine between 2001 and 2009 he oversaw staff writer Gene Weingarten’s two Pulitzer Prize-winning feature stories, Fiddler in the Subway (2008) and Fatal Distraction (2010). As an independent editor he has edited such New York Times bestsellers as Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One has the Time by Brigid Schulte and Top Secret America by Dana Priest and William Arkin.

Shroder’s The Hunt for Bin Laden (2011) based on 15 years of reporting by The Washington Post, became the #1-selling Kindle Single on Amazon.com. Shroder is also known for co-creating the Tropic Hunt, a mass-participation puzzle attended by thousands, which has become The Washington Post Hunt in Washington.

In addition to being an author and editor of narrative journalism, Shroder is one of the foremost editors of humor in the country. He has edited humor columns by Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten and Tony Kornheiser, as well as conceived and launched the internationally syndicated comic strip, Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson. With humorist Barry and novelists Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard, he concocted and edited “Naked Came the Manatee,” a satirical serial novel that became a New York Times bestseller.

Shroder was born in New York City in 1954, the son of a novelist and a builder, and the grandson of MacKinlay Kantor, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his civil war novel “Andersonville.” Shroder attended the University of Florida where he became Editor of the 22,000 circulation student daily newspaper despite the fact that he was an anthropology major (an affront for which the university’s journalism faculty was slow to forgive him). After graduation in 1976, he wrote national award-winning features for the Fort Myers News Press, the Tallahassee Democrat, The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Miami Herald. At the Herald he became editor of Tropic magazine, which earned two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure.

News Flash

The Operator will debut at number three on the New York Times bestseller list (combined hardcover and ebook nonfiction; it’s no. 4 on the hardcover list) of May 14. Having a book I wrote, but have no cover credit for, make such an impressive showing obviously produces mixed feelings. Mostly I’m thrilled for the success […]

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A Medieval Plot When our children were 11 and 9, young enough to still be entirely inside the family circle but old enough to remember, we splurged on a “once in a lifetime vacation” and rented a small farmhouse in southwestern France outside the village of Saint Cyprien. Each day our son and daughter […]